


Hiding under a desk is not how you solve problems

by helpImlost



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Gen, Kepler Has Feelings, Kepler being kepler, before the Hephaestus mission, character interactions, kind of, maxwell had a rough day, maxwell is not paid enough to deal with people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-14
Updated: 2018-04-14
Packaged: 2019-04-22 18:32:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14314653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/helpImlost/pseuds/helpImlost
Summary: When Kepler is forced to stay late to fill out a mission report he doesn't expect to have company.





	Hiding under a desk is not how you solve problems

If kepler had known how much of a mess the report for this mission was he’d have just gone home and dealt with it the next monday. As it were, here he was still at goddard at 11 pm on a friday and he’d only just gotten out of a hours long meeting where they’d been trying to decide to do with the information Kepler had acquired. 

And now kepler had to do the paperwork for it. Which would take at least another hour.

Kepler doesn’t sigh on his way to down to his office because Kepler doesn’t sigh. Period. But it’s a close thing. He thinks his general appearance still conveys the feeling, but he can’t bring himself to give a shit as even the people known for staying late and overworking themselves weren’t present at their workstations. It looked like Kepler’s area was completely empty. The walk up to his office is brisk and he wastes no time in unlocking the door, stepping in and turning on the light. He’s ready to get this work over with so he can go home and rest, from what he’d gathered Cutter was going to work him to the bone in the upcoming weeks as a result of today's mission. 

Except when he turned on the light there was a noticeable gasp heard. Kepler’s first thought is that someone has somehow broken into goddard and he straightens up, prepared for a fight. But a quick sweep of the room reveals it to be empty and kepler thinks that a professional wouldn’t have given themself away that easily. He holsters the gun he’d pulled out, making sure that the safety is on and walks towards his desk where he thinks the sound originated from. He can’t see what’s under his desk because the front is covered in wood, but he quickly steps around it to see if what or whoever made that noise was, ready to draw his weapon again if necessary.

What he finds isn’t an intruder. It’s Maxwell. 

Doctor Alana Maxwell, who works in a different department and should by all rights be at home right now, or at least not at work Kepler thinks, is curled up in one of the corners under his desk. 

Kepler allows himself approximately one second to process this information. He isn’t surprised. Warren Kepler doesn’t  _ do  _ surprised. But he does admit to himself that this is not a scenario he could’ve easily predicted.

He relaxes his posture into something that isn’t ‘I’m absolutely ready to fight if I have to’ but still holds the authority of someone with a higher rank. 

Well, dwelling on it isn’t going to explain the situation, so Kepler clears his throat to get her attention, which he’s sure he already has, thought she isn’t looking at him. He leans over slightly more so he can see her face better anyways and begins talking.

“Doctor Maxwell! What a surprise, I thought you’d gone home for the day.” Which was true, Maxwell was one of the people who tended to stay late, but that didn't’ explain why she was hiding in Kepler's office under his freaking desk of all places.

Apparently she wasn’t going to explain it either. She doesn’t answer his question, her knees drawn up as far as she could get them with her arms wrapped around them, still not looking at him. Kepler feels that familiar twitch of annoyance in the back of his head. He clears his throat again. 

“Doctor Maxwell, you are aware that what you’re currently hiding under my desk, in my office, on a friday, after everyone else has long since left. Correct?” His voice changes from a light inquisitive tone to rough, clear annoyance one ‘everyone’. That does get a reaction out of Maxwell. They haven’t worked together long enough to have learned all of each other's quirks, but that tone she already knew well. She knew what happen if the behavior the caused it persisted. 

She takes a breath and lets out a quiet “Yes, Sir.”

Well, technically she’d answered the question he thinks. And he takes notice of how small she seems to her usual headstrong personality and roomaletring presence. Still, he presses on. “Would you like to explain to me then how and why exactly I’m having to deal with one of my employees hiding under my desk like some scared child instead of doing my required task so that I may go home already?” 

He doesn’t bother ask about how exactly she managed to get past his locked door in the first place. He’s confident Maxwell could’ve simply hacked the lock open or used the extra keycard Jacobi ‘stealthily’ had nicked a few weeks prior. 

She flinches at that, but instead of explaining simply gives out another choked “Yes, Sir.”

Kepler waits with one of his eyebrows raised for her explanation and for her to get up and leave so he could begin the tedious task of filling in paper. Still slightly leaned over in case Maxwell decides to actually look at him today.

Maxwell does look like she’d trying to talk, her expression changing and mouth moving over soundless words in an effort to create a sentence before her face pinches in frustration. It’s during that movement that Kepler notices the tears on her face and after waiting another beat it looks like she’s got nothing for him. Her expression slightly panicked now, surely she’s expecting his rage now that she’s failed to answer to him properly several times in a row.  

And Kepler  _ is  _ annoyed at her, he really is. But, it’s the end of an already long and tedious day, there is no one else at the office, and Kepler just wants to get this done already. So instead of the explosion that Maxwell is clearly expecting and Kepler would’ve delivered under any other circumstances, he stops himself from giving an exasperated sigh and pulls out his chair. 

Maxwell doesn’t expect the complete change of an otherwise easy to follow script and jumps before trying to curl even further away from Kepler, clearly expecting him to bodily drag her out from under his desk and throwing her out. But he simply sits down, arranges his stack of papers on the desk before pulling the chair forward so he’s sitting at a proper distance for optimal paperwork filing. 

“Listen, Doctor Maxwell. I don’t know why you’re huddling under my desk like you’re in a hostile situation and someone will come and shoot at you any second” Well, technically Kepler guesses he is the gunman in this scenario, unless there was someone else Maxwell had royally pissed off. “But I have work to do and I intend to do it as swiftly as possible so this day can be over already. If you have to hide under my desk? That is not fine but I need to get this done and I will not be disturbed. We will talk about this at another time.” 

He picks out one of his several pens and begins filling in the first paper. He’s focused and barely notices the faint “Thank you, Sir.”. Whatever, he needs to get this done. He can punish her for this later.

Except Kepler and Maxwell apparently had very different ideas of what disturbing another person working entails. He’s worked through 6 papers when he feels pressure against his the outside of his leg. At first he thinks Maxwell’s finally decided to come out from her hiding spot. But the pressure stays there, kepler pauses and chances a glance under the table to see what the hell she’s up to. She’s changed her spot from tightly pressed into the corner to leaning against him, she’s still curled up with her arms around her legs and her back is turned to him. 

At this point Kepler doesn’t even know how to respond to this. He considers knocking her in the head with his knee but decides against it. He’s the one who let her stay in the first place after all. She didn’t appear to be doing anything else so he decides to let her have whatever it is she’s doing. He begins filling in the next paper, pulling up all the details in his mind and puts them down in ink.

Kepler has always been a talker. As a child he’d been constantly referred to as a chatterbox by annoyed teachers. So it really was only a question from time as he started talking while filing the paperwork. Didn’t help that there was actually another person present that he could talk at.

“So, you want to hear the story of I ended up doing boring officework at-” Kepler looks at the clock. “11.53 pm on a god damn friday?”

He doesn’t get an answer as expected. Or, he’d expected a loud groan and ‘Oh god no please don’t’ as was Maxwell's usual response. But she remains silent. He wonders absently if she’s fallen asleep as he begins the long winded explanation of how he’d come into work monday morning only for Mr. Cutter to immediately call him up to his office and how his week had only gotten worse from that point on and how he was expecting a pay raise after this whole thing thank you  very much  _ Miss Young _ -.

It goes on like that for the next hour or so, Kepler recounting his week and continuing filing paper after paper with Maxwell quietly leaning against him. 

“-and then, I had to jump out of the plane while it was taking off and that’s why I had to go to the medical bay before I could explain to Mr. Cutter that no it was the technician that was the one that double crossed us but since a certain  _ someone  _ had already written a faulty report I had to redo it and do it right and long story short?  _ That’s  _ why I’m here now, with a literal stack of papers to fill out instead of home drinking good scotch and getting some well earned rest.”

Well, he was almost done now anyways, so soon he’d go home and forget all about this disaster of a mission. And he couldn’t be sure but he was pretty sure that Maxwell had fallen asleep. He wonders idly if he should just leave her there until monday.

Except that’s apparently when she decides to start talking coherently again.“That was an awful story Sir. I can’t believe you had me sit through that.”

Her voice was still that same, barely above a whisper and sounding like she’d just woken up or been crying. Also, Kepler thinks, he didn’t make her sit through anything. She’s the one who was adamant about living under his workspace.

“Doctor Maxwell! How nice of you to finally join the world of the living. And since you seem to have once again mastered the use of your voice,” his voice now has that upbeat tone that meant things would get real ugly real fast if she didn’t answer his question this time. “Care to explain what’s going on with you?”

She’s moving slightly now, still leaning on his leg though. “You’re the one who requited me, you’re the reason I get to work on things I never thought would be possible because of the limitations.” She didn’t need to clarify what the limitation was. ‘ _ People’  _ was clearly understood from the tone she used to say the word. Kepler let’s her finish the sentence. “I didn’t realise that even here, where we get to work with such advanced technology, I’d still have to deal with the human end of things. Didn’t warn me about that part did you.” She huffs at him. In an attempt at humor he supposes.

Oh, Kepler gets it now. Well, he doesn’t really get it, but he understands now approximately what had happened or could’ve happened that was so bad it apparently forced Maxwell to hide under his desk and  _ cry _ . But why she’d gone through the trouble to come here he still didn’t get. 

“Wasn’t Jacobi here when all this went down?” He asks for lack of something better to say. 

“No, he’s been on an offsite location doing R&D work for the past three days.” She says. Ah, that explains some of it, still, why hadn’t she gone hide under Jacobis desk instead? 

She flinches and Kepler realises he’d said that out loud. He was really starting to lose focus. But he was so close to being done, so he pretends he meant to say that.

“His desk is in a public area and I, um, I’ve been hiding here since before the workday ended. I didn't’ want to deal with anyone, and I knew you were out on a mission Sir, I didn’t think you were going to come back today.”

Well that makes sense kepler thinks, except that he was going to have a long proper talk with her later about breaking into his office and the level of disrespect of all of this. Later thought. 

“Uh huh, and may I ask, what human exactly was it that caused this?” Might as well get to the bottom of it, Maxwell might not be under his direct supervision yet, but if this was going to be a regular occurrence,  _ had  _ been a regular occurrence, sooner or later it was going to affect her work. 

“Oh, um, it was one of my supervisors. It wasn’t about anything technical or work related, he simply didn’t like how I act. Like that has any bearing whatsoever on my work, I’m the smartest person in that room and the only reason we’re getting the results we’re getting is thanks to me but no he has to attack and  _ slander  _ me because I don’t make enough small talk or eye contact for his liking-” She was ranting now, her old presence returning more and more for every word and Kepler feels his mouth briefly twitch into a smile. There was one of Goddards genius scientists, not some scared girl hiding from the world under a table. Which means that this, whatever this was, was over. Kepler finishes signing the last paper and then pushes his chair out to stand up, causing Maxwell to ‘eep!’ as she almost falls over now that there was nothing to lean on and he interrupts her ranting. 

“I see, Doctor Maxwell, is this something that’s been happening a lot with this supervisor?”

She stops from where she’d been crawling out from under the table and the look on her face says everything.

“Alright then, I’ll make sure to talk to them about this. harassing co workers is inexcusable. If it’s gone so far as to damaging your work ethic then it needs to be dealt with. If you’ll tell me their name I’ll make sure to deal with it.”

Maxwell looked at Kepler with an unreadable expression as she stood up and stretched, her bones popping and cracking from sitting in a curled up position for so long. “You sure about that, sir? I can deal with him on my own, you don’t have to-”

“Doctor Maxwell-” he interrupts her. “From what I understand you’ve been hiding under my table because of this person for possibly over 6 hours. And it also sound like this is a regular occurrence, except you normally go to Jacobi for this. Am I correct?”

She hesitates, then sighs. “Yes, Sir.”

“That’s not a situation one would call ‘handled’ is it?” He questions her.

“No, Sir. It is not.” She replies sullenly.

“Then I’m dealing with this, end of discussion.”

He makes sure the papers are organised and ready to be handed over before picking up the stack. Not bothering to look at Maxwell who was now standing up and looking a lot closer to normal.

“I’m going to go turn these papers in now. And then, I’m going home.” 

She looks at him in confusion. Like she’s not sure what script they’re following right now. Kepler doesn’t sigh.

“Maxwell, get out of my office, now.”

That seems to do the trick as she gives another ‘eep’ before quickly walking out. Kepler walks out behind her and turns of the light before closing and locking his door. And then, before he forgets, he turns to Maxwell and holds out his hand. She looks at his hand in confusion.

“Key card, please.” He says in the most casual tone he can muster.

“Oh” she replies and fishes the card out of her pocket before giving it to Kepler, at which point she seem to realise what just happened. “Ah wait no, damn it.” 

“Thank you Doctor Maxwell” Kepler says with the smuggest voice possible and gives her what she and Jacobi referred to as the ‘knife cat’ face. Which he didn’t really know what it was about but it infuriated them to no end so he made sure to use it as often as possible.

“You’re the worst boss, ever, of all time.” She deadpans back at him. Her eyebrows scrunching together in irritation at his face. Her shoulders drawn up and hands clenched into fists at her side. Kepler could tell she wasn’t actually angry at him though, and she or Jacobi would just steal the kaycard again at some point he was sure. “ Technically, I’m not your boss.” He says with a laugh in his voice that could've been real a long time ago. 

The walk up to cutters office is quick, what with there being no other people around, or at least no one Kepler could see. Except for Maxwell, who was following him. He couldn’t be bothered to stop and confront her about it thought, so he goes to Cutters office, knocks on the door and enters to see his boss sitting in his chair, smiling and cheerful as if it wasn’t past 1 am in the morning at this point. He feels chills run down his back unwillingly and walks into the office.

The encounter is over quick enough and Kepler represses whatever small talk had occurred while he’d handed over the papers as he makes his way down to the garage. Maxwell is still following him. And she’d stopped talking again. 

He’s standing in front of his car now and Maxwell is a few steps behind him. She hasn’t made a move to leave and Kepler is not doing this. He's not going to play babysitter to his coworkers. He’s not going to give her a ride. He’s going to get in the car, tell Maxwell good night, and drive off. Except, now he’s in the driver seat and the words that leaves his mouth are “What’s your address?” and not ‘good night.’.

She doesn’t look relieved, like she’d been banking on Kepler giving her a ride, more like she’d been on autopilot and the easiest thing to do up to this point had been to follow kepler around. And he’d let her. He wants to smack himself for that.

“Uh, my, my address?” She asks him back.

“Yes, Doctor Maxwell, your address, so I can drop you off where you live.”

“Oh,  _ oh _ . Um-” she rattles of her address to him like it’s something she didn’t want to waste memory space remembering but had forced herself to anyways. And he pretends to type it into his gps like he didn’t know where she lived. 

The drive is silent and uneventful, Kepler notices that at no point had Maxwell even pulled up a phone or other device to distract herself with like she normally would. But she didn’t look upset anymore either. He’d even go as far as to say she looked to be in a good mood. Which he really had no idea why she would be in a good mood but he doesn’t question it. He drops her off at her address and she she thanks him before hopping out and going into the apartment building. Kepler doesn’t wait around and immediately drives home. 

By the time he’s parked his car and is on his way up the doorstep it’s well past 2 am. The second he steps inside the door into his house two things happen. 

One, the bone deep crushing exhaustion that he’d pushed away for days now falls over him and suddenly he isn’t even sure if he can make it to his bedroom. The second thing that happens is that he’s swarmed by his two cats. They greet him as enthusiastically as always, completely heedless of the late hour but they seem to catch on to his tiredness as quickly as always. Settling for quietly following him around after he pets them. They crawl onto his bed with him even though usually he didn’t let them in the bedroom. But he’s tired enough that he doesn’t care, and is even grateful when one of them curls up to his chest. He relaxes let’s his hand run over it’s soft fur and it’s comfort and he wonders briefly if this is why Maxwell had leaned against him when she was curled up under the table. He’d really need to have a talk with her on monday thought, but he’d deal with that after he destroyed the supervisor who’d caused today’s little drama. It’s the last coherent thought he has before falling asleep. 

Monday was going to be interesting for sure.


End file.
